


when my time comes around

by Mellaithwen



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst with a Happy Ending, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Guilt, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Missing Scene, Multi, OT3, Polyamory, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Threesome - F/M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 20:10:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mellaithwen/pseuds/Mellaithwen
Summary: Spoilers for Avengers: EndgameA fix-it-fic, of sorts.“Sam,” Bucky says quietly, because there’s a man sat on the bench by the water, and he definitely wasn’t there a second ago. And he knows, he knows.Bucky would recognise Steve Rogers anywhere...





	when my time comes around

**Author's Note:**

> thank you [shortsighted_owl ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shortsighted_Owl) for the quick once over, all mistakes are my own :)
> 
> I think I blamed Hozier already for another fic of mine...but I mean, honestly, [ the guy's relentless ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTHsCug1ouA)

 

_“Don’t do anything stupid ’til I get back.”_

 

_“How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.”_

 

.

 

Bucky looks around the woods to try and ease his panic.

 

Steve isn’t standing where he’s supposed to be, and Banner said this was safe, he said he’d be fine, and Steve had parroted Bucky’s own words back to him which meant he had to actually _make it back_ , and goddamnit he’s just the type of idiot to pick a fight in a back-alley and get stuck in the middle-ages or something—and that’s when he sees him.

 

And he stops.

 

And stares.

 

“Sam,” Bucky says quietly, because there’s a man sat on the bench by the water, and he definitely wasn’t there a second ago. And he knows, he _knows_.

 

Bucky would recognise Steve anywhere—at first the figure looks so slight that Bucky wonders if it’s a Steve from his past that’s sat by the water, a hallucination maybe, or some visceral flashback of Steve all skinny and fierce and desperate to right the world’s wrongs one bully at a time—but then he sees the shock of white hair and he motions for Sam to go first.

 

Bucky’s wanted this for as long as he can remember—and his memory’s been getting better day by day. He remembers promising Sarah Rogers that he would take care of her only son, no matter the cost. He remembers saying something similar to Peggy before their last mission, and she’d reached up on her tiptoes to plant a kiss on his cheek and whispered, _make sure you come back too Sergeant_ , and that had been nice. He remembers Col. Philips telling him plainly, after a gruelling three hour debrief, that no one would think any less of him if he took the discharge and headed back home. _Sorry sir, but me and him? We’re tied together_.

 

But this? To see little Steve Rogers old and grey? That’s the dream. Because that means he didn’t get put down by the flu in ‘38, or by the Nazi’s in ‘44, or by Bucky’s own metal fist in the middle of a helicarrier crashing to the ground in 2014. He _made_ it. He got back up, he survived, and that feels like a _gift_ in of itself.

 

Bucky tries to swallow past the lump in his throat when Steve hands over the shield to Sam, and damn if he doesn’t look so _right_ holding it—god knows it’s not a burden just anyone could undertake lightly, and Bucky’d never been happier to see Steve drop the damned thing willingly than he was in Siberia before they’d limped away to lick their wounds and find refuge in Wakanda.  

 

A symbol like that takes its toll.

 

“Your turn.”

 

Bucky blinks, because Sam’s standing right in front of him, and Bucky hadn’t even heard him approach. He’s gesturing over to where Steve’s sat alone, waiting for Bucky to join him, and when he doesn’t respond, Sam gives him a gentle shove in the right direction. He leads Banner away and back up to the house to give them privacy, and suddenly it’s just Bucky and Steve, and the still waters of the lake at dusk.

 

The sun’s hanging low in the sky now, and it’s been such a long day. Bucky’s been on edge ever since this morning when he finally agreed to attend the funeral in the first place. He’d been sticking to the corners of every room he’d found himself in, hiding in the shadows as much as possible—but of course that’s exactly the kind of thing that attracts curious little children, adept at making friends. He’d learnt that much in Wakanda, with the children in the village that used to chase him around until he agreed to play hide and seek with them. Mostly because he’d pretend to be so bad at it that they’d always win.

 

Meeting Tony’s daughter had been no different, but it's certainly brought up a mess of emotions he doesn’t think he could ever hope to untangle any time soon.

 

She’d looked up at him so expectantly, craning her tiny neck to meet his gaze, and he’d found himself automatically dropping to a crouch to be on her level.

 

He used to be good at that. He used to be good with kids. He remembers his little brothers and sisters and how he always knew what to say, and what to do, and how to fix their problems no matter how big or small. Dependable, his mother used to gush, an earnest mensch.

 

He can’t fix anything here, and he thinks if that sweet little girl had had any idea of who he was to her and her family, she’d have run a mile.

 

“Hi,” she’d said instead, and he’d knelt there, frozen, gaping like a fish when all of a sudden a woman with red hair had rushed forward, swinging the child into her arms. Bucky’d recognised her straight away as Tony’s wife—Tony’s widow—and to anyone else Pepper’s speed could have been attributed to the element of surprise, and her wanting to illicit the inevitable fit of giggles from Morgan’ Starks ticklish form, but Bucky’d known better. She’d been afraid. She’d been afraid for her child in her own home, and he’d ended up apologising in a rush, stepping backwards only to hit the wall that he’d cornered himself into.  

 

“It’s okay, everything’s fine,” Pepper had insisted, sounding well-rehearsed to Bucky’s ears, and the little girl had been content at least to wave goodbye as she was carried away. Far, far away.

 

Bucky’s brought back to the present by a hand laying on top of his, and when he looks down, he  sees the ring around Steve’s finger shine faintly in the waning light. He smirks a little, nudging his best friend in the shoulder as he does so.

 

“No longer the most eligible bachelor in New York, I see.” He says with a sly smile. Sometimes he likes to try on the old Bucky Barnes charm like a glove to see if it still fits. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

 

Steve laughs at that, and it’s so strange to see the same mannerisms—bashful as they are—on an older face. He doesn’t volunteer any more information, but instead Steve leans back against the bench, and starts fishing something out of his pocket and Bucky frowns at the faint buzzing in his ears that wasn’t there before. Like electricity in the air. Like something’s happening. Something important.

 

Bucky looks down at his left hand as though it might hold the key to the prickling charge he can feel in the atmosphere but the dark matte vibranium plates just move as fluidly as flesh—and it feels like it always does, sturdy and light, because the Wakandans sure as hell know what they’re doing with their metal work—but….there’s something bothering him that he can’t quite put his finger….

 

And then he realises it’s not his left hand that’s bothering him at all. He looks down at his right hand, and frowns as he pulls away from Steve to stare at it. It’s like a phantom pain—except it doesn’t hurt—and if he squints he thinks he can almost make out an indentation on his right ring finger. A tan line that wasn’t there before.

 

“What the….?”

 

“He wanted you to have it.” Steve says as he slips something into Bucky’s palm. “He said you’d need it more than he does right now.”

 

Bucky uncurls his fingers to see an identical golden band sitting there in the centre of his hand. He doesn’t know what to say—he can hardly breathe—and his lips part as if to speak but they only close again straight after.

 

Somehow, instinctively so, he knows this ring is his own.

 

“We’re happy. The _three_ of us.” Steve says quietly, and Bucky lets out a whoosh of air at that. His mouth is dry but his eyes are wet, and he can hardly see Steve for his own unshed tears blocking his vision. He remembers the three of them stumbling back to Peggy’s rooms off-base after drinks at the pub—Steve insisting on walking her home through the half bombed out streets of London in the dark, and Bucky following suit because everyone knows what a trouble magnet Rogers can be.

 

And if the other Howling Commandos ever suspected anything, they were too decent to bring it to light.

 

Bucky remembers shuffling up creaky stairs, the three of them shushing one another like teenagers until they were finally all of them undressed and curled around one another under the scratchy old sheets of the small, small bed—any excuse to huddle in close.

 

Right now, in the present, Steve reaches out for Bucky’s hand again, clutching it tightly, this time with both their rings entwined and as they touch suddenly Bucky can see it in his mind’s eye—it’s a memory, of that he’s certain, but he has the strangest feeling that it hasn’t happened yet. Not to him.

 

He can see the three of them; Peggy, Steve and him, dancing in their own front room with Sidney Bechet & His New Orleans Feetwarmers playing on the wireless. But that can’t be right, the calendar on the mantle says it’s 1953…

 

Bucky lets out a little gasp, because the flashes—Steve’s memories, and maybe Bucky’s own too, however the hell that works—these moments that he’s seeing are disjointed and they’re assaulting his senses but he can’t let go, he’s desperate to _see_ every last second—

 

— _Buck, it’s okay, you’re safe now_ —

 

—she’s in the red dress, and she doesn’t even look up from her glass when she says, _I’m afraid that seat’s taken_ —

 

—the kettle lets out a shrill whistle from the kitchen that makes him jump a mile—

 

—he spots a figure in the distance and thinks that’s twice now that he’s seen that snivelling swiss rat scurry down a dimly lit corridor—

 

—your death amounts to the same as your Life; a zero sum—w _e are both of us, out of time_ —

 

—when Peggy says she’s assembling a team, Steve can’t help but feel wary, but realises he needn’t have worried when a stocky man sporting a familiar bowler hat steps out of the taxi cab, and makes his way up to Peggy’s front porch—

 

—do you trust me—

 

— _“Buck?”_ Steve calls out tentatively, but the figure shaking in the corner of the prison is far from lucid, and he’s wincing at the light that’s pouring into the room as though he’s been kept in the dark for god knows how long. He's curled in on himself, flinching at every step Steve takes, with no way to distinguish between friend or foe—he's been in hell for so long— _“Easy,_ ” Steve says with his palms held out, as though his heart isn’t broken into a million pieces at the sight of the shivering prisoner. His pal. His buddy. His— _“_ _I’m not gonna hurt you, I’m here to take you home,”_ and Bucky must have been holding out for as long as he could, because the second he’s within reach, he passes out and falls straight into Steve’s waiting arms—

 

— _sorry I’m late, I couldn’t call my ride—_

 

_—let's hear it for Captain—  
_

 

_—my god, what have they done to him, his arm, the monsters _—__

 

—Bucky’s sitting on the sofa, with his left shirt sleeve tucked up to his shoulder and Peggy’s head in his lap. He’s twirling his fingers around her curls while Steve watches them both in the doorway like he can’t believe they’re real, like he can’t believe they’re his—

 

—and _it’s been so long, so, so long_ —

 

—he's muttering and jerking in his sleep. Restless and plagued with the horrors of his captivity, but before Steve even gets the chance to intervene, he can hear Peggy's voice at his back. _Hush darling, we're here, you're safe with us James, I promise, I swear I won't let them near you ever again_ —

 

—they both curl their bodies around him until the nightmares cease, hiding him from the world, his protectors, his lovers—

 

 —the steam of the shower comes flooding from out of the bathroom and he's stood there with just a towel around his waist, and his hair is dripping wet, rivulets that fall past a mess of scar tissue, and he's clean, and warm, and Steve has to bite his bottom lip to stop from—

 

—he grabs a hold of the headboard in a desperate bid to find purchase, his face is flushed, his eyes blown black, and his knees quiver, mere seconds away from—from—not yet, not yet— _I can't_ —he whimpers— _I have to_ — _please_ —and then she gives her permission and Steve's at his ear whispering,  _do as Peggy says,_ as he comes—

 

—she kisses him on the lips and Bucky moans with pleasure because he can still taste Steve on her tongue and speak of the devil, Steve’s nudging his legs open while Peggy whispers, _we’ll take care of you James, just let go_ —and—and—you saved me— _you found me—_

 

Bucky lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, and only opens his eyes when he feels Steve’s fingers brush away at the tears streaming down his face.

 

“I…I…” He’s speechless.

 

“I know,” Steve agrees, “I couldn’t believe it either—Bucky Barnes learning to share.”

 

“Jerk.” He says after barking out a laugh that only sounds a little wet, but considering what visions he's just been made privvy to, he'd be forgiven for getting a little emotional. He remembers that prison—and his reality had not been so kind.  “Fuck…” He still sounds breathless. His heart’s so full of love and hope and longing that he feels all but fit to burst. And even though it’s more than he could ever have hoped for there’s still a swirling pile of dark thoughts that remind him _that isn’t you, that isn’t your life, you don’t deserve—_

 

“When you’re ready, I can take you there.”

 

_“What?”_

 

“Shh,” Steve says, and Bucky hadn’t realised until just then how loud he’d exclaimed in a desperate bid to keep his self-deprecating thoughts at bay. “Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve been bouncing some ideas off of Dr. Pym—”

 

“But—”

 

“I can’t pretend to understand it, Bucky, really I don’t, but if anyone deserves a couple do-overs, it’s us, don’t’cha’think?”

 

And maybe it’s just how deep Steve leans into that little bit of his old Brooklyn accent just then, but Bucky can’t hold it in any longer, and he pulls him in for a kiss. When they finally come up for air, they’re completely alone—even the birds in the trees have flown away, and the sun has long since set, and Steve’s eyes are shining in the moonlight.

 

“I’m ready,” Bucky whispers all at once, and Steve grins as they lean forward, shored against one another, just like the old days.

 

.

 

Bucky blinks because a second ago he’d been helping Steve on to the platform, shouldering his slow gait lest he falter as they ready themselves for some late night time-travelling shenanigans—but now he’s in a dark alley that’s vaguely familiar and—

 

“You’re you again—I mean, you’re young again.”

 

“I thought you said you didn’t mind older me?”

 

Bucky splutters, “I don’t! That’s not what I meant—I just…I mean, I don’t understand—”

 

“Hey—woah, _breathe_ ,” Steve says as he comes closer, and puts his hand on Bucky’s chest to calm him down. “Everything goes a lot easier if you just let it go.” He takes a deep breath in through his nose, and out through his mouth, and he makes a motion for Bucky to copy him, which he does, until his heart’s stopped hammering against his chest and the pounding in his head starts to fade.

 

Clearly Steve’s become somewhat of an expert at jumping between Quantum Realms, and making the most of second, and third chances. Bucky doesn’t like that he doesn’t understand it—and he doesn’t like that whatever kind of time-travel this is, it doesn’t seem to follow any kind of logic he’d attribute to Shuri’s endless movie marathons in the palace.

 

But like Steve said, he’s here now, and he has to let it go.

 

After all, they have somewhere they need to be.

 

.

 

“And you’re sure she meant New York, right?” Bucky asks, for what seems like the hundredth time from the doorway of the crammed club on East 53rd street.

 

“Yes.” Steve says, in that long suffering way of his before licking his thumb and wiping at a bit of dirt on Bucky’s nose.

 

“What? I got some shmutz on me or something?” He asks as he bats away Steve’s hand like a child, and rubs at his face before continuing with their previous conversation without even missing a beat. “And you’re sure you’re sure?” He asks again as he smooths back the strands that have come undone from the elastic tie in his hair, “’cause it's gone 8 o' clock and remember there was a club in London—”

 

“ _Yes,_ Buck.”

 

“—and Dum-Dum was all, ‘ _oh hey, The Stork Club on Swallow Street, reckon they did that on purpose?’_ And then he got all embarrassed because he hadn’t meant it to sound like that—”

 

“Buck—”

 

“—And then all those dames came tumbling out the front door and they must have been freezing, half naked, and Monty’s eyes went all wide and—”

 

“Bucky!”

 

“Jeez, you don’t gotta yell—what?”

 

“Look.”

 

The crowd parts now that another group have been served their drinks, and without them all blocking their view, Bucky can see her plain as day.

 

Peggy Carter is sat on the far end of the bar, perched on a stool with her legs crossed, and her red shoes tapping absentmindedly to the music that’s playing as the tempo becomes more and more up-beat.

 

She’s twirling the half empty tumbler in her hand, staring transfixed at the amber liquid sloshing against the ice cubes as they clink against the glass. She seems so far removed to the patrons on either side of her—subdued against their drunken joy—but determinedly so, as though she had expected nothing else. _A week, next Saturday at the Stork Club, and don't you dare be late._

 

“Go on.” Steve says, nudging Bucky forward, but he plants his feet and doesn’t move an inch.

 

“Me? No, you go—you’ve done this before, you know what to do, I don’t want to screw up the timeline—”

 

“ _Oh, for the love of_ —you’re not gonna screw up anything pal, I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere, but I think it’s time you get the first dance.”

 

“Hey dipshit,” Bucky snaps a little, because he can always tell when Steve’s trying to make up for something out of some misplaced Irish-Catholic-guilt bullshit, and there’s just.no.need—and secretly he’s still frustrated that he doesn’t understand time-travel like Steve at least pretends to.

 

“Listen, it’s a jive,” he says when Glenn Miller’s saxophone section starts to kick in, and the kind of dancing starts to shift dramatically all around them. “We do it together,” Bucky says, grabbing a hold of Steve’s hand in his—both of them without their rings because that’s something they have to look forward to now. They’d left them both in an envelope with a long letter for Sam, and the promise to check in on him one day.

 

“Togeth—” Steve starts to agree when they hear a voice practically shriek their names over the trumpets and trombones— _“Steve?! James?!”_ —and suddenly they both have their arms full with one very happy, if a little confused, Margaret Carter.

 

“Together,” Steve finally gets to say—over the laughter and the tears, and the many many questions they trade-off on answering—and as he says it, he thinks he can feel a kind of thrumming between the three of them, like an invisible thread that up until now has been flailing loose for so long, only to finally be tethered to its masts—they’re the three of them connected through time and space, and Steve knows, without a shadow of a doubt, that this is where they all belong. With each other—to the end of the line.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooooo technically Steve doesn't say that he marries Peggy—it’s heavily implied (I mean they literally go from talking about Steve’s wife to a shot of him dancing with the love of his life) but hey maybe I’m wrong and he just gives her a dance in 1970, finds someone else to marry, and Peggy remains married to her original timeline husband and does her thing!
> 
> ….But this is more of a fix-it for the former, going back further, and actually using the time travel to save his best friend from 70 years of torture, so wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey-shhhhh-let-me-have-this-cause-I-don’t-understaaaaand


End file.
